What is our Mission

bkclaw113

As I was thinking about the discussion in the meeting last night regarding how to drive engagement within the group I realized that I do not know what the purpose of the group is. Without a clear and agreed upon understanding of what we want out of the group I think it will be very difficult to drive engagement. So I am proposing that we articulate exactly what it is that we want out of the group. I have included a few discussion points below as conversation starters but I would really like to hear from as many people as possible about what you want from the group. These ideas are not meant to be mutually exclusive so feel to pick multiple or add your own: * Training and exposure to new techniques * Networking * Support structure for answering questions and assisting with design * Volunteerism * Social - Free beer and pizza * * *

john_miller9

This is a great question Brian - thanks for posting!

I'm sure we could come up with a mission for our specific geographical user group, but thought I'd check to see what the Alteryx team has stated.  Here's something I found:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/User-Group-Resources/User-Groups-on-Community-FAQ/ta-p/14807

What is the User Groups on Community?

The User Groups on Community connects you to a community of people like you to share work experiences, ideas and best practices, ask questions, and gain insights.

That said, the Community Team at Alteryx has always encouraged us to define ourselves in a way that fits with our local community and the unique needs and wishes of our members.  To that end, I'd echo Brian's statement and encourage everyone to respond with your thoughts here? 

For me, I am involved in the Philadelphia User Group for the following purpose: Connect > Learn > Share > Grow > Promote

Connect - meeting with other people in person for that human connection around data and analytics.  Outside of the the yearly conferences, local user group meetings are my primary source for doing this.

Learn - one of the ways we can connect with one another is by learning from each other.  What are the challenges that people in my community are facing and how have they solved it or how are they struggling to solve for it.  This helps to address the blind spots that come with not understanding businesses / departments / functions that are outside of my area of expertise.

Share - there's nothing like the feeling that comes from helping other people.  And the opportunity to do so, centered around a topic that we're all passionate about like analytics, makes it all the better.  

Grow - Helping one another become better at what they do by sharing the successes, failures, and lessons learned over the years in a welcoming environment is how we ourselves become better.  This mutually beneficial interaction helps to facilitate the growth of collective membership.  When we help each other succeed, we benefit as a group.

Promote - this is our chance to find the people in our community that are doing great things in their organization and highlight these efforts to a broader audience.  Whether it means nominating someone for an Alteryx use case within the Community Page, encouraging them to speak at a user group meeting or conference, or providing them with a volunteer or employment opportunity, the local user group is great opportunity to promote our local talent.

As for the areas I'm interested in that we're not currently leveraging, I'd highlight two areas: Training and Volunteering

Training - other user groups like London, have hosted certification day that consisted of preparation/tips for 45 minutes and then the Designer Core exam for the next 2 hours.  Depending on interest, we may even want to stretch this out over 2 meetings, perhaps a week apart.  But first we need to know what kind of interest level there is among this user group.

Volunteering - I'd love to get involved in Alteryx For Good and leverage my analytics skills to help my local community.  And it would be great to have a team of other talented data professionals to help me to that.  If this sounds like something you'd like to get involved in, please let us know here.

Thanks for getting the ball rolling Brian.  I hope to hear from the rest of you as well!